Where scientists from abroad want to conduct research

Universities in smaller cities becoming increasingly popular

13-Aug-2014 - Germany

The universities in the major conurbations Berlin and Munich are in particular demand among foreign researchers according to the Humboldt Rankings released today. The ranking list shows how many researchers have come to Germany on a fellowship from the Humboldt Foundation in the last five years ‒ and the institutions where the greatest numbers of these researchers spent their research stays.

The top three positions in the Humboldt Rankings are held by the cities Berlin with the Freie Universität Berlin (FU) and the Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin (HU) and Munich with the University of Munich. The order of the top three has not changed since the publication of the last Humboldt Rankings in 2012. Universities in smaller cities however are catching up in the latest ranking: The University of Göttingen has climbed to fifth place. Just two years ago, it placed ninth. RWTH Aachen University rose from 14th to 12th place. The Universität Regensburg improved its standing from 18th to 16th place. The University of Münster made a leap from 22nd to 15th place ‒ making it a newcomer to the top 20 addresses that are particularly popular among high-calibre foreign researchers.

“Foreign researchers apparently choose the institution for their research stays not only on the basis of whether it is located in one of Germany’s largest cities”, says the president of the Humboldt Foundation, Helmut Schwarz, looking at the rankings. “This shows how much faith there is worldwide in the quality of science and research in Germany ‒ be it in Berlin, Munich or Westphalia. That is not only good for Germany as a location for research work but also for our foreign relations in general”, Schwarz explains.

In order to determine the Humboldt Rankings, the number of research stays by top international researchers and junior researchers who have conducted research in Germany in the last five years in connection with a fellowship or award from the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation are counted. To avoid statistical bias arising from differences in the size of the host institutes, the rankings relate the number of research stays to the number of professors at the respective university. Despite this weighting, universities in Berlin and Munich top the list ‒ cities that are also at the top of the rankings in terms of the absolute number of research stays (see Table). It is also striking that only half of the top 10 slots are held by universities that are considered “elite universities” based on their performance in the third funding line of the Initiative for Excellence.

Max Planck institutes take a clear lead in the rankings of non-university research institutions: The Fritz Haber Institut in Berlin, the Max Planck Institute for Colloids and Interfaces in Potsdam and the Max Planck Institute for Polymer Research in Mainz hold the top three positions.

Top 20 host universities

Weighted rankings	Institution	Weighted (absolute) number of guest researchers*
1	Freie Universität Berlin	141,67 (289)
2	Humboldt-Universität Berlin	112,45 (271)
3	Universität München	73,11 (261)
4	Universität Bonn	63,19 (182)
5	Universität Göttingen	58,5 (148)
6	Technische Universität München	57,39 (167)
7	Universität Heidelberg	56,17 (182)
8	Technische Universität Berlin	54,84 (119)
9	Universität Bayreuth	53,44 (70)
10	Universität Freiburg	53,16 (143)
11	Universität Bielefeld	48,15 (78)
12	Technische Hochschule Aachen	47,67 (123)
13	Technische Universität Darmstadt	47,4 (82)
14	Universität Frankfurt am Main	47,35 (125)
15	Universität Münster	47,14 (140)
16	Universität Regensburg	46,75 (79)
17	Universität Potsdam	45,67 (58)
18	Universität Köln	44,57 (119)
19	Universität Konstanz	43,18 (57)
20	Karlsruher Institut für Technologie (KIT)	41,57 (106)